The Hacker and the Ants

1994 novel by Rudy Rucker

The Hacker and the Ants

First edition

Author| Rudy Rucker
Language| English
Genre| Science fiction
Publisher| AvoNova

Publication date

| May 1994 (Morrow/AvoNova); May 1995 (AvoNova)
Publication place| United States
Media type| Print (Hardcover; softcover)
Pages| 307
ISBN| 0-380-71844-8 (1994)
OCLC| 32732575

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The Hacker and the Ants is a science fiction novel[1] by American writer and mathematician Rudy Rucker, published in 1994 by Avon Books. It was written while Rucker was working as a programmer at Autodesk, Inc., of Sausalito, California from 1988 to 1992.

## Plot summary

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Jerzy Rugby is trying to create truly intelligent robots. While his actual life crumbles, Rugby toils in his virtual office, testing the robots online. Then, something goes wrong and zillions of computer virus ants invade the net. Rugby is the man wanted for the crime. He's been set up to take a fall for a giant cyberconspiracy and he needs to figure out who — or what — is sabotaging the system in order to clear his name. Plunging deep into the virtual worlds of Antland of Fnoor to find some answers, Rugby confronts both electronic and all-too-real perils, facing death itself in a battle for his freedom.

## Transrealism

[edit]

The main character is a transrealist interpretation of Rucker's life in the 1970s. (Rucker taught mathematics at the State University College at Geneseo, New York from 1972 to 1978.)[2] As such, though the character is fictional, he bears some exaggerated resemblance to Rucker's interpretation of himself at the time. Rucker tells John Shirley in the introduction to recent editions, "I have never really left my body and gone to infinity's Heaven."

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "The Hacker and the Ants". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
2. ^ Rudy Rucker's Biography

## External links

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Works of Rudy Rucker

Novels|

| The Ware Tetralogy|

* Software (1982)
* Wetware (1988)
* Freeware (1997)
* Realware (2000)

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Transreal novels|

* White Light (1980)
* Spacetime Donuts (1981)
* The Sex Sphere (1983)
* The Secret of Life (1985)
* The Hacker and the Ants (1994) (Revised 'Version 2.0' 2003)
* Saucer Wisdom (1999) novel marketed as non-fiction
* The Big Aha (2013)

Other Novels|

* Master of Space and Time (1984)
* The Hollow Earth (1990)
* Spaceland (2002)
* As Above, So Below: A Novel of Peter Bruegel (2002)
* Frek and the Elixir (2004)
* Mathematicians in Love (2006)
* Postsingular (2007)
* Hylozoic (2009)
* Jim and the Flims (2011)
* Turing and Burroughs (2012)
* Return to the Hollow Earth (2018)
* Million Mile Road Trip (2019)

Short fiction collections|

* The Fifty-Seventh Franz Kafka (1983)
* Transreal!, also includes some non-fiction essays (1991)
* Gnarl! (2000), complete short stories
* Mad Professor (2006)
* Complete Stories (2012)
* Transreal Cyberpunk, with Bruce Sterling (2016)

Non-fiction|

| As author|

* Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension (1977)
* Infinity and the Mind (1982)
* The Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality (1984)
* Mind Tools (1987)
* All the Visions (1991),
* Seek! (1999)
* Software Engineering and Computer Games (2002)
* The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me about Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life, and how to be Happy (2005)
* Nested Scrolls (2011)
* Collected Essays (2012)
* Journals 1990-2014 (2015)

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As editor|

* Speculations on the Fourth Dimension: Selected Writings of Charles H. Hinton (1980)
* Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder (1987)
* Semiotext(e) SF (1989)

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